A Tooth Fairy Tale Film Analysis: Cartoon Adventure with a Sprinkling of Family-Friendly Tween Romance

In this cartoon adventure for preteens, the world of fairies focuses on collecting baby teeth of slumbering children and leaving gold beneath where they sleep. Skateboarding youthful nonconformist fairy Van (brought to life by Booboo Stewart) is less than thrilled about spending his future to collecting baby teeth—a sentiment that’s completely understandable. He’s only slightly more curious about the financial workings of the situation: the fairies deliver the teeth to unseen goblins, who provide metal as payment. But Van’s curiosity grows when he catches sight of a goblin (played by Larkin Bell), who turns out to be far from the ugly creature he expected.

A Forbidden Bond and Common Enemy

The stage is set for an exciting quest with a gentle touch of young love (though it’s very much suitable for younger kids). The goblin and fairy groups are estranged from each other, and there’s nothing like the excitement of secrecy to bring people as one. Both groups as seen here are incredibly similar, yet both maintain prejudiced beliefs about the opposite side. The fairies are supposed to be self-centered types, prone to stealing anything they want, while goblins are reportedly dim-witted, foul-smelling, and backward, but are in fact bright and advanced in technology.

Naturally, such a setup needs a shared foe to join forces against, and this is duly provided by some nasty spiders, voiced by Jon Lovitz and Fran Drescher. They make no secret about their intentions: they want to eat the fairies and goblins, and they make for quite savage, if not particularly skilled, villains.

Target Audience and Final Thoughts

You won’t find very many children’s animations aimed at the kind of audience that is beginning to have first crushes, but aren’t yet old enough for the content 14-year-olds view these days instead of Twilight. Should your youngster falls into this age group, it probably won’t to be their next all-time fave, but it’s a decent choice.

A Tooth Fairy Tale arrives in movie theaters in Scotland from 10 October and across the United Kingdom from 24 October.